CLAT 2013 Update: “Revised First Provisional List to be announced today. There may be some minor changes” – Prof. SP Singh, CLAT Committee Convenor

After announcing that the First Provisional Allotment List for the undergraduate program shall be “reviewed and revised” following certain developments, the CLAT Committee Convenor has confirmed that the revised list will be published today..Speaking to Bar & Bench, CLAT Committee Convenor Prof. SP Singh said that there might be a few changes in the new list, a list he expects to be published anytime today. The changes are on account of three separate incidents: one, the release of results which had initially been withheld following the late submission of application forms; two, confusion with respect to the ST Plain, ST Hills and ST categories; and three, a writ petition filed before the Kerala High Court alleging discrepancies in the preference list of students..The first issue was resolved after it was discovered that the problem arose because there was a delay in the postal services. The second issue, regarding ST and ST Hill categories, was discussed by the CLAT Committee and the Committee eventually decided to place the ST Hills category on par with the ST/ST Plain category. As per Prof. Singh, a similar problem had arisen the previous year as well..As for the third issue concerning discrepancies in the preference list, Prof. Singh said that he had ordered for an enquiry to be conducted into this matter, and that the hard copies of the student’s application was also reviewed. A technical team was also deployed to check whether any errors could have cropped up in the online application process. “Mistakes can occur”, concedes Prof. Singh, “but our job is to rectify them.”.With respect to conducting the entrance test, Prof. Singh said that it has been a challenging eight months for him and his team. “We have been putting in some really long hours,” he said, “it certainly has been a very challenging experience.”.Declining to comment on the effectiveness of having a rotation policy by which a different law school conducts the entrance examination every year, Prof. Singh said that any change in this would purely be a policy decision. With the number of CLAT applicants likely to increase with every passing year, establishing a permanent CLAT Committee may well be a prudent decision.